I had heard that the whole thing started as a robbery, but it did not end
up a robbery. It ended up as a murder - not because Matthew Shepard was
wealthier than his assailants, but because he was gay. Robbers tend to
take the money and run. Sometimes they kill their victims, mostly not,
but when they do, it is usually done quickly and solely to prevent the
victim from leading the police to the perpetrator. They don't take their
victims out in the country, beat them, and tie them, still alive, to a
fence post and leave them to die.
I must stand by my definition of a hate crime - where the person being
victimized is selected because of an inherent characteristic or exercise
of a constitutionally protected right. To include wealth in such a
definition would be disastrous, as well as contrary to the spirit of the
constitution.
What you propose is, as you stated, protecting a "favored" class - favored
by some sectors of society in any case. Where do we go next? Lots of
people are supposed to hate lawyers, or used car salesmen - let's pass
laws to protect them, too. But, those are not favored groups, so their
protection may be long in coming. Being wealthy, or a lawyer, or a used
car salesman - these things are a matter of choice and of personal
industry (except for inherited wealth, I suppose). To start legislating
in this manner would set up a system of law based upon class. This we can
not allow.
Our basic premise of jurisprudence is that all are EQUAL under the law.
Everyone is afforded the same rights and protections. This is the goal,
and recent political events make it clear that this is a hard enough goal
to attain as it is. Start setting up "favored" classes, and then some
would be above the law by reason of socio-economic status. This would
grant class privilege, and nullify the inherent value of each human
being. The rich could kill the poor, and it would be no big deal - the
poor person didn't contribute much to society anyway.
Any hate crime legislation must, for this reason, restrict itself to
inherent characteristics or constitutionally protected rights. It is
because there are people out there who consider that someone else has
diminished worth as a human being because they are inherently different.
The wealthy are victims of those who want to acquire some of that wealth.
The criminal wants the money, and the bearer of it is merely in the way.
The wealthy person isn't hated because they are wealthy - unless they have
stepped on people and fostered the hatred by their activities - and that
is a different situation. The folks I advocate protecting are the victims
by virtue of being themselves, not for their acquired assets, or for what
they may have done to others. Further, the crimes against these persons
are almost always crimes of violence directed to the individual. These
people are not special interests. Special interest groups seek, and
obtain perhaps, advantages over others. Hate crime laws, as written, and
as I support, serve to level the field by putting these people on an equal
footing with others. The laws acknowledge, in substance, that racial
minorities, men, women, gays, lesbians, the transgendered, Jews, and
Baptists are equal to all equal to each other, and have equal worth
because they are PEOPLE, nothing more. It affirms the concept that "all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness."